Recycling Saves Energy, Reduces Pollution and Helps Create Jobs

November 15th, 2012 is going to be celebrated as the 15th ‘America Recycles Day’. It was initially founded in the year 1997 and was the idea of a non- profit organization called Keep America Beautiful. The day is celebrated in order to encourage the citizens of the country to dump less garbage in the landfills, and instead recycle most of their waste.

So far, the rate of recycling garbage has increased over the past few years. It was around 8 percent in the year 1960, and rose to about 17 percent in the year 1990. Currently, the rate of recycling in the United States of America is about 33 percent, according to the report given by the Environmental Protection Agency. A lot more, however, can be done as most of the waste going into landfills can be reused, recycled or even composted.

Why is Recycling Necessary?

Most of the citizens constantly wonder why it is necessary to recycle their waste and what difference would it make anyway. According to Tellus Institute’s report, which was issued in 2011 and was called ‘More jobs, less pollution’, more recycling practices will only help in creating over 1.5 million jobs by the year 2030. Also, recycling will help in reducing the high levels of pollution, as will the usage of eco-friendly promotional items.

According to the report, if 75 percent of the country’s waste is diverted, almost 276 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 2030. It is equivalent to eliminating emissions from over 72 power plants that are fuelled by coal. Or, it could also be equivalent to taking over 50 million vehicles off the roads in the United States of America.

Gas Emissions Can Be Reduced by Recycling

The greenhouse gases emitted can be reduced by using products that are made out of recycled materials, which takes lesser amount of energy than the items made from any virgin material. For instance, recycling of aluminum requires only five percent of energy from the total amount of energy used to make a can out of virgin materials.

Recycled plastic takes only about ten percent of energy and cardboard or recycled papers takes only sixty percent of this energy. An added benefit of recycling paper is that you can help save the trees.